


The road to love is paved with books

by symphorine



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Asexual Sawamura Daichi, Bookstore AU, M/M, Pining, a bit of flirting, and some fluff, iwa & daichi friendship, you guys should know by now that it's a given there's a least one ace character in my fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 10:26:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8485774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symphorine/pseuds/symphorine
Summary: "If you need anything else, call me. I’m Suga,” he smiles.He has the smile of an angel. Daichi needs a second to gather his thoughts and find his words.“Thank you,” he finally says, and almost collides with the bookshelf behind him in his strategic retreat.OR:  "you work in a bookstore and I like you but I don't have the courage to talk to you so I'll keep coming in and buying a fortune of books even though I don't really read just to see you"





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is for a prompt by wrennaonwings on tumblr! the prompt is in the summary
> 
> i hope you like it!

 

The first time Daichi walks into the bookstore, it's by accident. He's on the phone with Ennoshita, telling him to hold the fort until he can come back, and mistakes the bookshop's door with his own. By the time he's realized, he's too embarrassed to walk back out, especially since the cashier is looking right at him. He mumbles an apology and goes to make it look as if he's browsing the shelves. He needed a quiet place to finish the call anyway.

When he hangs up, it dawns on him that he hasn't been around so many books in a long time. There are a few, in his office, about management and psychology of the average company employees, but he's never actually read them; he hasn't had the time in years. Most of his free days are spent catching up on sleep, and he doesn't have that many free days to begin with.

He takes a look at his watch. He doesn't have the time, technically. He shouldn't even be here, he'd just forgotten a file.

"Can I help you?" someone asks behind him.

He almost jumps out of his skin, and turns to discover the cashier from earlier, smiling politely. He looks cute, Daichi notes, in the part of his brain that still cares for what isn't related to his work. Too bad that part seems to take control of his words right now.

"Uh, well," Daichi stutters. "I'm, uh, looking for a... novel."

Yes, Daichi Great plan. Lie to the cute guy. Then again, it would probably have sounded very stupid to say ‘I pushed the wrong door even though I have lived in this part of town for almost a year’, and he’d like to avoid making a fool of himself in front of him.

"We have a lot of them," the cashier points out, deadpan. "Can you be more precise?"

“A… mystery novel?”

Daichi hates how unsure he sounds, but for some reason he can’t think straight.

“Sure, they’re this way,” the guy says, pointing at an area in the back. “Second to last shelf on the left. If you need anything else, call me. I’m Suga,” he smiles.

He has the smile of an angel. Daichi needs a second to gather his thoughts and find his words.

“Thank you,” he finally says, and almost collides with the bookshelf behind him in his strategic retreat.

Suga looks amused, at least, and less mad than he had when Daichi had entered the store. He shakes his head and leaves too, presumably to go behind the counter again. Daichi feels his cheeks burning as he walks toward the section Suga had indicated, and he browses without real curiosity, mind held up by the smile. And the mole, right under his eye.

He eventually comes back to reality and realizes he only has twenty minutes to get the file and go back to work, and he hasn’t even eaten. He chooses a book at random and hurries to the front of the store. It’s still Suga there, and he looks up with a smile.

“In a hurry?” he asks lightly, looking at the book. “Oh, it’s a good one, I heard.”

“Yeah, I took too long,” Daichi replies, trying to remember if he has something he can heat up and bring with him on the way back.

Suga asks him for six hundred yen, and Daichi fumbles to find the coins in his bag.

“I won’t keep you, then. Come back and tell me how it is,” Suga smiles.

“Will do!” Daichi promises as he steps out.

He has no idea what he actually does before he’s back at the office, file in hand and almost finished sandwich shoved hastily in his mouth. He can only remember Suga’s smile.

* * *

 

The next times aren’t accidents. He comes again, on his way to work if he finds the strength to get up earlier or, more often, on his way home. He starts leaving work earlier, start to not be the last one anymore, and he finds that the likes it, now that he has something to look forward to when he’s finished his day. Nobody can hold that sudden change of habits against him, anyway; he’s done almost more overtime than regular hours in the last year.

Well, he _does_ feel guilty, at first, until Iwaizumi gives him his bi-monthly phone call and tells him that it’s _really_ time he stops living for his work, anyway. Daichi would have hung up in sign of protestation  at his tone, but they’ve known each other enough to have been past niceties for years anyway. Even if it cut sometimes a little too deep, he appreciates Iwaizumi’s honesty. It isn’t the first time his friend has told him to find something to do with his life that doesn’t revolve around his office, to be fair, though he doubts Iwaizumi had ‘stalking the cute guy who works in the bookstore on my way home’ in mind.

Maybe stalking  isn’t the right word. After all, he  does pay for a book every time he  steps inside that bookstore, it  isn’t like he just...  hides there and  watches . He  feels guilty if he  doesn’t buy anything, like he’ s wasted Suga’s time. For all he  looks pleased to see Daichi and talk with him, Daichi  is painfully aware it’ s most likely just because it’ s his job to be amicable. Oh, sure, maybe he actually  likes seeing Daichi, but he  does’t want  Suga to spend five minutes indulging his – okay, he  can admit it to himself – his burgeoning crush  only to get nothing in return.

And so Daichi  has found himself with an unfathomable quantity of books. Most of them  are exactly the type of books he  has in his office, boring academics that he  will never read. They’ re waiting in piles and piles for him to decide what to do with them, covering the ground of his apartment. It  makes it look more lived in, at least.

Some, though, he  does read. Suga’s recommendations.

He can see Iwaizumi’s eyeroll at his enamored high-school student behavior from here, but what can he say? He has no idea how to even approach Suga.

“Here again? I’d think you’d get tired of this place,” Suga calls when he enters, wet from the light rain outside.

“Never,” Daichi answers immediately. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to be, anyway.”

Oh, yes, great. Reve a l how little of a life you have outside of  work, that’s a great flirting tactic, Daichi.  He walks toward the counter and tries to resist the urge to hit himself on the head.

“Really? Not even home?”

“At least here I have company,” Daichi replies, dignity be damned.

“Good company, I hope,” Suga says, leaning over his counter to get closer to Daichi.

“Not too bad,” he grins.

“‘Not too bad’, huh. And what should one do to get better praise?” Suga inquires, closer than ever.

Daichi panics. There’s something going on, something that’s making him feel like smiling, but suddenly he can’t seem to feel it anymore.

“Uh, direct me to the medical books?”

Suga looks surprised, and there’s something else flashing across his features for a brief second. He sighs and leans back on his chair.

“I wonder how you haven’t memorized where everything is by now,” he teases, but his smile isn’t as bright as usual. “This way, three shelves down on the right.”

“Thanks,” Daichi mumbles, because good manners win over his embarrassment.

He walks away as fast as he can, and stops once he’s far away enough that he knows Suga won’t see him, or hear. He closes his eyes and drags his hand down his face with a deep sigh. What even was that? Was Suga flirting with him? Why hadn’t  _he_ kept going? He’ s out of practice, but not  _that_ much. It could have gotten further, it could -

Ah. But that’ s the problem,  i s n ’t it?

It’ s easier to convince himself that Suga would never want him back than to ac knowledge that he’ s afraid. He doesn’t want to relive the failure that was his last relationship – he doesn’t want to have to face someone he loves walking out on him again because he wouldn’t have sex. It wasn’t Daichi’s fault, he’d warned him when they’d started dating. Somehow, it had ended far more badly than he’d thought possible.

He definitely doesn’t want a repeat of that.  It  would be better if it stayed innocent flirting.  Was Suga even flirting? Or was he being friendly? Daichi has never been good at telling it apart, and it isn’t any easier now. He’s not sure he wants to know, anyway.

He leaves the store with a thick volume on anatomy and what’s almost certainly a dick joke from Suga, and tries to not let the cold feeling spreading into him show as he tells him goodbye. He walks the three steps that lead him to his own door and prefers the stairs over the elevator, slow on a good day. He needs the exercise to keep from thinking, climbs the step three by three until his floor, and open his door almost violently. He throws the book against a pile, and they all fall down, adding to the noise he makes when he slams his door shut.

He slinks to the ground, and forces himself to breath deeply, regularly, until he doesn’t feel like crying anymore.

When he finally looks up, there’s nowhere he can escape the books. He’s been to the shop so much, they’re everywhere. He can afford it, has never looked at a price tag, and very rarely only at a cover, too busy admiring Suga. Now he picks up the closest one, from the destroyed pile. I t ’s a heavy tome on art history, something he’s never likely to open. The next one is a book on accounting, and the one after that, a small volume of poetry.

He pushes all of the books in a corner and, when he goes to bed, resolutely sleeps turning his back to them.

* * *

 

The next day, he stays at work long past the bookstore’s closing time, caught up in trying to prevent a small office drama from getting bigger. The day after, he has way too much paperwork to organize. The day after that, he has to fill in and take on clients, and he still has his own work to finish when he’s done. And the day after, and the day after, and…

The books are still in the corner of his room, taunting him, and one night he picks one up angrily and starts to read it. He learns a lot about the life of German poets, which wasn’t exactly the goal, but it can’t be totally useless knowledge.

When he’s done with that one, he picks the next, starting to read his way through all the books. He refuses to remember the warm hands of the person who had handed them to him, refuses to remember the smile, refuses to let his feet carry him down in the street and into the bookstore. He won’t hurt himself like that anymore.

"Hurting yourself, huh," Iwaizumi repeats when he explains.

They're sitting across each other, eating lunch in a small restaurant. Iwaizumi is here in passing, some meeting this afternoon, and Daichi is glad they've managed to find the time to see each other.

"Yeah," he nods, slurping his noodles. "I don't see the point in torturing myself over it."

Iwaizumi leans back in his chair, a pensive frown on his face. "That's assuming he would act like you're supposing he might."

Daichi snorts by reflex, and barely avoids getting soup all over himself. "I appreciate you being optimistic on my behalf, but you shouldn't bother."

"You were happier when you were seeing him, though," Iwaizumi points out.

"I was never _seeing_ -"

"Fine, when you went to the bookstore to flirt like a schoolboy, whatever," Iwaizumi says with a shrug. "Still. It made you happy. Now you're back to living for your job."

Suddenly, Daichi doesn't feel very hungry anymore.

It's not like he has much else, though, is it? Most of his colleagues are, well, just colleagues, and while he's kept in touch with friends from college – like Iwaizumi – and even some of his exes, he's alone, here. He doesn't have a lot of things to fill his time.

Well. Now, he has the books.

"It's not worth it if it's to get my heart broken again," Daichi sighs, pushing away his bowl.

He stays still under Iwaizumi's inquisitive gaze, because he's taken his resolution, dammit.

"You could still be upfront with him, and gain a friend anyway," Iwaizumi reminds him, in a voice way too soft.

"Or he could think I'm a freak and never want to talk to me again."

"Or maybe you're being a stubborn ass and I'm right."

"Please, just... drop it."

Iwaizumi narrows his eyes, but then he mumbles something that sounds like "fine", and changes the subject.

They finish lunch without mentioning it again, and Daichi is treated to a five minutes call by Oikawa asking Iwaizumi where he put their vacuum cleaner that brightens his day. Mostly because it's hilarious to hear his friends squabble on the phone. They've always been a kind of show by themselves, even before they'd started dating.

"I might have some time this afternoon," Iwaizumi tells him when they step out. "Do you mind if I come see you before I take the train back?"

"I'll try to get out early, then," Daichi replies with a smile.

"See you then."

"If you can’t come, say hello to Oikawa for me."

"I'll try to remember before he jumps on me and knock me out," Iwaizumi replies drily.

"You can’t hold that against him forever. He’s happy to see you, that’s pretty cute, no?"

Iwaizumi grins, and suddenly he looks ten years younger. "It's way too much fun to stop mentioning it."

Daichi walks back to his office shaking his head fondly, and he feels lighter than he has in days.

* * *

 

When he goes home, Iwaizumi is waiting for him.

In front of the door to the bookstore.

"No," Daichi declares, before Iwaizumi can even open his mouth.

"Yes," Iwaizumi replies on the same tone. "I want to see him at least once. And you need to talk to him anyway."

"And say what? 'Oh, sorry, I flirted with you and then remembered I'm never gonna have sex with you so I panicked'?"

Iwaizumi shrugs, like this has nothing to do with him. "You can try that, but maybe find another formulation."

Daichi stares at him for what seems like an eternity, but Iwaizumi doesn’t budge.

"I hate you," he sighs, but goes to open the door.

"That's the spirit," he hears Iwaizumi laugh behind him.

There's nobody at the counter to greet them when the little bell rings. Daichi isn't sure if he's feeling disappointed or relieved.

"He's not here, expedition over," he whispers to Iwaizumi.

His friend looks him in the eyes and closes the door behind them. He raises his eyebrows in challenge, and Daichi resists the urge to throw his hands up.

"What do you even want me to do if he's not here?" he asks quietly.

"Oh, sorry!" Suga's voice interrupts them, as cheerful as ever. "Can I help…"

Suga's voice trails off and Daichi is pretty sure he's stopped breathing himself when he turns around.

Suga is looking right at him, and his entire face seems restless, like he's forcing himself to keep his smile on but a thousand of other emotions want to spill out. It pinches at something in Daichi's heart, and he tries to breath again, through the wave of guilt.

"Can I help you?" Suga says again, slowly, and for once Daichi can tell his smile is fake.

Iwaizumi takes a few steps to the left behind him. "I'm just going to browse," he announces before leaving them, not without giving Daichi a discreet pat of encouragement on the back.

And then it's just the two of them and Daichi really, really wants to turn around and bolt through the door.

"And you, sir?" Suga adds, his voice unctuous and cold at the same time.

‘Sir’. He fucked up.

Daichi swallows. "Actually, uh, yeah. I need to talk to you."

Suga's expression doesn't change, but somehow, Daichi can still practically _feel_ him thinking, until he nods curtly and gestures for him to go to the counter. Suga slips behind, and Daichi stays on the customer's side, his fingers drumming nervously between the both of them.

"So? What did you want to talk about?" Suga asks, arms crossed. "Your new... _friend_?"

Daichi frowns. "My friend? Oh! He's not- He's not my boyfriend," he corrects quickly. "He's a friend from college, and he's, uh, the reason I'm here now, actually."

Suga keeps his arms crossed, but relaxes a little bit, and the air feels slightly less tense. "Huh. Then what _did_ you want to talk about?"

"I'm not sure how to go about it," Daichi sighs, rubbing his neck.

Suga doesn’t try to ease the silence. It’s a bit unfair, Daichi thinks, even though he understands why Suga is mad. It’s not like he had _wanted_ to suddenly remember his worst insecurities, and then proceed to freak out.

"I, um. I like you.” There’s a knot in his stomach, and Suga’s expression doesn’t change at all, but he forces himself to continue. He might as well say everything, now. “I kept going in and buying books, but I didn't even read them, I just wanted to see you."

"That's a good start, kind of cute," Suga comments, deadpan. "Keep going."

Daichi flashes him a quick smile, but it drops as soon as he starts talking again. "I stopped coming to see you because I... panicked."

"Panicked about what?" Suga asks, disbelieving. "It's not like I was sending you very mixed signals here."

"Because you'll want sex and I can't give you that," Daichi blurts out.

It's a good thing they're alone for now, or he would probably have been mortified. As it is, it's just Suga, looking at him like he's not really sure he's understanding, and Daichi's heart plummets.

"I'm not attracted sexually to anybody, and I don't like sex, so I wouldn't-" he has to stop himself, has to take a deep breath. Suga is still looking at him, but he has no idea what he's thinking now.

"I would still very much like to be friends, if that's alright with you," Daichi starts again. "But I can't-"

Suga lifts a hand to cut him off. "Can I make a confession too?"

Daichi nods. He doesn't trust his voice.

"I like you a lot too," Suga admits, softly. He gets closer and puts both of his hands on the counter, barely an inch away from Daichi's fingers. "I thought you'd just decided I wasn't worth your time, or something, since you left so abruptly, so I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty mad at you," he says with a small laugh.

"I'm sorry, I should have told you sooner," Daichi sighs.

"I have a feeling it's not something you talk about to anyone," Suga points out drily, "so don't blame yourself. Well, not too much."

"I'll try," Daichi smiles. "So is that a yes to being friends?"

Suga's hands are on his, suddenly, and between that and Suga's smile, Daichi is pretty sure he's going to faint.

"It's a yes to dating you," Suga declares.

It takes a few seconds to sink it.

"Wait, what?" Daichi exclaims. "Not that I'm not happy, but-"

"I'm willing to try," Suga cuts him off. "You're cute, you're fun to talk to, you kept my business afloat with all the books you bought, I think," he lists off with a smirk. "And I like you. And, even if we never have sex, it's nice to have a really hot boyfriend to look at from time to time."

"I'll take that as a compliment and not you objectifying me," Daichi replies, unable to hide his smile.

"Why couldn't it be both?"

"Oh thank god," Iwaizumi interrupts. "I'm taking the hand-holding as a sign that you worked things out?"

He joins them, no book in hand but a smug smile on his lips.

"You can say that," Suga answers with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Good, now you can stop moping around," Iwaizumi tells Daichi.

"I wasn't moping," Daichi protests. Both Suga and Iwaizumi keep looking at him in silence, and he's pretty sure he's blushing. "I wasn't!"

"Don't worry," Suga reassures him as he pats him on the cheek, "I find it cute, if you don't do it too often."

"Is it too late to pretend I hate you?" Daichi sighs.

"Yep. You're stuck with me now," Suga declares, falsely compassionate.

Daichi isn't really sure which one of them starts leaning in, but he finds himself kissing Suga, feeling his smile widening under his own lips, and he wants to stay in this little bubble of pure happiness forever.

"Yeah, I'm, uh," he hears Iwaizumi say. "I'm gonna go catch my train. See you guys soon."  
Daichi tries to break away to wave him goodbye, at least, but Suga pulls him down again, and, well, he doesn't resist much.

**Author's Note:**

> as usual, [tumblr post](http://asexualkurootetsurou.tumblr.com/post/152810704319) (with the original prompt)
> 
> hope you had a good time reading!


End file.
